


Yours, Charlie

by Pen37



Series: The Actual Human Disaster, Hufflepuff, Adventure Archaeologist and the Missing Brother [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (Video Game)
Genre: Actual Human Disaster main character, Asexual Charlie Weasley, Demiromantic main character, F/M, Original Dragon Handler Character, Originally Posted on Tumblr, ace!Charlie Weasley, adventure archaeology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 09:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pen37/pseuds/Pen37
Summary: People grow apart. Except when they choose to grow together.





	Yours, Charlie

People graduate with good intentions to stay in touch. They go their separate ways. They change. Life happens. They grow apart.

Then one day, they meet up and discover that these friends who were once as comfortable to be with as your favorite pair of old boots, are simply different people.

This is not what happens to you.

—

_Dear (Y/N),_

_Thanks for inviting me to see Greece with you, but I’m not going to be able to visit._  
_ Getting kitted out for the job has taken more of my first paychecks than I anticipated. (I know I complained about needing a new wand in my last letter, but I also needed fire-proof clothing, and a better broom. My old Cleansweep just wouldn’t cut it. I’m thinking of getting their newer model. )_

_I’m going to try pulling in extra shifts on my off days for a while so I can afford everything._

_The Weird Sisters at the Acropolis sounds like it would have been brilliant. Maybe think of me when you stand under the stars listening to Do the Hippogriff._

_If you ever find yourself in Romania, look me up._

_Yours,_

_Charlie_

You put the letter aside and stare out the window of the flat you share with nine other apprentice curse breakers. (It’s not so bad. Most of you sleep in magically-expanded luggage. It feels rather more like a dormitory than a flat).

You can certainly understand having to squeeze every galleon until it shouts for mercy.  
But you really wanted to see Charlie.

You’re making loads of friends, and there is talk that you might get to head up your own exploration of a cursed tomb.

But outside of sporadic letters, you’ve barely heard anything of your old Hogwarts crew.

Of course Bill, your honorary big brother, had been in the habit of writing you letters already. Mostly filled with curse-breaking advice he learned in Egypt.

Rowan tells you that Barnaby is happy in his new job with the Ministry’s Beasts division. (Barnaby never was much for writing. Or even literacy). They partnered him and Lizard up. So at best, they confuse the illegal beast smugglers into giving up.

As for Rowan, your first and best friend, she’s working on rare and unusual wood acquisition for Ollivander. (And enjoying the obscure minutiae). It’s not teaching at Hogwarts, but Dumbledore had been kind when he suggested that she get some life experience and perhaps specialize in a field of study before applying for a teaching position.

Speaking of the ministry, Tonks made it into the aurors and Tulip is doing something she can’t talk about in the unspeakables department.

Ben is an apprentice healer with St. Mungos, and Penny is working with the hospital’s potions department.

No one has heard from Talbot since the leaving ceremony. You wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to live as a bird somewhere. Despite your best efforts to friend that boy, he always did fly solo.

Andre has been the most successful of your lot. He is on the reserve team for Pride of Portree. They’ve a rather deep bench, so he may not get to play this year. But he’s drawn some notice in the fashion world by wearing his own designs to various Quiddich functions. He writes that Madame Malkin even discussed the possibility of carrying his designs in her shop.

Jacob is home, letting Mum drive him mental while he studies to take his NEWTS.  
It feels like you’re all drifting apart.

Charlie has been the most faithful to answer your letters. Out of all your friends, his letters are the ones you find yourself rereading. He’s the one you find yourself thinking of most.

On one hand, you could invite your new curse breaker friends along to the concert. They’d probably all end up going. You’d stay out too late, drink too much. In the morning someone would do an embarrassed sneak from a magical trunk that was not theirs, hoping the others didn’t notice, while the rest of you pretended not to see.

Get up, break some curses, bring back ancient treasure, take siesta, get up, party half the night and fall in bed exhausted. Then repeat.

It sounds glamorous when you write to Tonks about it. But it’s actually become extremely monotonous. And there’s an edge of loneliness about the whole thing. For all that your roommates talk big about being out on their own for the first time, a lot of the boasting sounds like it’s covering up for homesickness.

Picking apart the tangle of your emotions, you realize that was the real reason you wanted to see Charlie so bad. You miss his quiet, stable presence. You’d never realized until he lived an entire country away, exactly how much you needed that grounding force in your life.

Right. You decide that the mountain would just have to go to Muhammad.

So you pick up your biro and write.

—

_Dear Charlie,_

_Don’t worry about the concert. In all honesty, I probably shouldn’t spend my paycheck on tickets, anyway._

_I’m not really bringing in much treasure yet. I volunteered to go through a cache in an old monastery up in Thessaloniki. There are some interesting books there, but not much else. I think the goblins were hoping for gold votive items._

_They let me keep the books. I’m meeting with the Library of Alexandria’s acquisitions wizard, who may buy the ones I don’t want._

_I do have a three-day weekend coming up, and I don’t really want my co-workers to drag me out to another taverna “to toast Dyonisis” one more time. We’re supposed to stay sharp to avoid curses, but most of them are doing this job while hung over. I’m a little afraid that one of them might not come back one day._

_If your offer stands, and I wouldn’t be in the way, I’d like to visit. I think I could make the apparition in three jumps. So I wouldn’t need to spend anything on portkey or flue (and you know I’ve never had a broom)._

_I don’t expect you to entertain me. I’d probably just spend the whole time reading._

_Yours,_

_(Y/N)_

Charlie puts the letter down, and rests his chin in his hand. Your letter leaves him with a warm feeling inside.

He looks around the tent he’s been assigned with a sigh. It’s not much.

You’ve written that you’re sharing a flat with a number of apprentice curse breakers. That you’ve set up a bedroom/study inside a haversack with an extension on it. So you’re no stranger to Spartan living.

He grins to himself. Given your posting, you probably know more about the Spartans and the way they lived than he does.

He knows that he can’t set aside time to spend with you, even if he’d like to. (And he would like to. Just— there’s a new clutch of hatchlings. And they’re brilliant!)

Now you, here, would be a distraction from the work he needs (wants) to do.

But he offered. And deep down, he knows he’d feel lighter just knowing you were in the same space, even if you were ships that pass in the night.

Even for stolen moments as he rushes to work earlier than he has to. (“Weasley!” Godwin, His supervisor shouted at him this morning, “If you fall off your broom because you didn’t get enough sleep, I’m going to personally hex you!”) or comes back and collapses face-first into his bed.

With a sigh, he grabs a fresh parchment and composes his letter.

—

_Dear (Y/N)  
_

_If you want a place to retreat to, I have an open tent.  
_

_I won’t be around much, sorry to say. We just hatched our first successful clutch of Romanian Longhorns In nearly three years. I’ve been put in charge of the dawn to 3 P.M. shift in the nursery.  
_

_Also, I smell like regurgitated chicken guts and brandy most days. I’m mostly used to it, but I’m told the smell lingers.  
_

_Just warning you.  
_

_Yours,  
_

_Charlie_

—

When you appear at the apparition point, no one is there to greet you. You look about for a moment with a heavy heart, wondering if maybe Charlie forgot. Then you shrug the hurt and disappointment away. He did say he was consumed with the dragons. Getting upset at him for being dragon-obsessed after all this time would be pointless. You may as well ask water not to be wet.

You’ll just have to find your own way.

You’ve taken three steps when an Olive-skinned woman with black eyes bustles up to you. She exudes confidence and competence in a way that reminds you of McGonagall.

“Are you here for the reserve?” She asks. Her accent sounds like she might be from around Bristol.

“Um… Yes?” You wonder why Charlie never mentioned that he was sending someone.

“Good! Follow me.”

You hitch up your haversack and fall in line behind her.

“I’m Godwin. You can call me Ma’am for now. If you’re still here next week, you can call me by my name. We’ll have a tent for you by the end of the day, but we’re short-handed for now. Everyone wants to play with the new hatchies and no one wants to shovel the dung.” She sounds exasperated.

With a start, you realize that Godwin thinks that you’re a hopeful dragonologist. You consider correcting her - but then again, she did say they needed help.

Lending a helping hand has always been your weakness. Anything from the hospital wing to the Three Broomsticks. If you were asked, you’d roll up your sleeves.

If Charlie was unable to even meet you, then perhaps the least you could do is lighten his and his co-workers load.

—

Charlie looks at the position of the sun, then swears. You were supposed to apparate in about an hour ago. He takes off for the apparition point at a run. When he gets there, an annoyed wizard sits, surrounded by bags.

“Have you seen a witch?” Charlie holds his hand up to indicate your height. “She’d have been carrying a haversack, and possibly wearing a sweater with an initial on it?”

“Are you having me on?” The wizard snaps. “I’m supposed to start work today. But no one met me.” He has a nasally whine that sets Charlie’s teeth on edge.

Charlie scratches his neck. He has a sinking feeling that he knows where you went.

—

You’ve scooped most of the composted dung pile into fertilizer bags when Charlie turns up with Godwin. He seems unsurprised to see you in your Wellies and dungarees. Godwin frowns at you like you’ve personally offended her.

“Hi Charlie!” You wave cheerfully at him. “It doesn’t matter if you smell like chicken guts now. I think I might smell worse.”

Charlie rolls his eyes. “It figures I’d find you here.”

“Why did you let me think you were a new hire?” Godwin berates you.

You lean on your shovel. “You seem like you needed the help. And I don’t mind the work.”

She throws her hands in the air. “You must have been a Hufflepuff.”

Charlie laughs at that. A deep, hearty sound that you’ve sorely missed. “Come on, (Y/N), let’s get you cleaned up, and you can come meet the hatchlings.”

—

_Dear Charlie,  
_

_Thanks for inviting me up for a visit. I enjoyed getting to meet your co-workers and seeing the reserve.  
_

_Guess who got to explore the ruins on Mount Parnassus? That’s right! Yours truly. We located a chest of coins paid to the Oracle of Delphi in exchange for her prophecy.  
_

_Did you know that to make a prophecy, the oracle first sat on a tripod over a chasm, breathing in fumes until she was high as a kite? And that those fumes were said to come from the decomposing remains of an ancient dragon that Apollo slew? (So much about divination class makes sense now.)  
_

_I’m sending you a scroll that has Homer’s account of the battle between Apollo and the dragon. It was part of my share of the treasure. (I seem to have trouble choosing sensible treasure like gold, when there are books that no one but me wants).  
_

_Of course, it’s written in Greek, so you probably can’t read it. But maybe your dragon reserve would like it for their library.  
_

_At any rate, I’m due for another long weekend next month. If you’d like some company, I’d love to visit again.  
_

_Yours,  
_

_(Y/N)_


End file.
